Category:Free MediaWiki wiki farms

These are wiki farms (current and former) that are powered by the now ubiquitous MediaWiki (MW) software, and importantly, offer permanently freewiki hosting to users. It should be noted that the services listed below might not offer hosting on solely a free basis; they might also choose to offer additional 'enhanced' wiki hosting options on a paid-for or commercial basis. Please see the parent category at category:MediaWiki wiki farms for other services who offer MW hosting on a non-free paid-for option.

The table below contains direct links to known free MediaWiki wiki farms. They also include the Special:Version link to see which version of the MediaWiki software is being used, along with any additional extensions. The Special:Export can be used by anybody to download the wikitext database for multiple pages. Paste in a list of the page names, or put in just a category name, and have it export the wikitext for all the pages in that category. Administrators on a wiki are able to use Special:Import to create multiple pages on a wiki from those exports. Database dumps for a whole wiki are usually linked at the bottom of Special:Statistics, although you may have to be logged-in to see it. Most free wiki farms use some form of on-wiki advertising for long-term funding. See also the opt-in advertising sections of Wikipedia: Funding Wikipedia through advertisements.

For all MediaWiki sites, a list of all wikis should also be available via the MediaWiki API (mw:API:Main page) database access facility at /w/api.php?action=query&list=listwikis (or /wiki/api.php?action=query&list=listwikis), and / or the WikiDiscover module at /w/api.php?action=wikidiscover, though some sites do not enable the required API modules or allow anonymous API read access.

EditThis.info: — this MediaWiki host is 100% free. However, it appears to have been abandoned by their system administrators (the feature requests page has little to no responses, and the village pump has been blanked and protected). Also, this host is running an ancient version of MediaWiki, and thus is significantly lacking the latest features.

Miraheze: — users should be aware that despite what is advertised, Miraheze developers do not allow wiki founders to fully manage the configuration settings. Some of the extensions are similar to that of the Wikimedia Foundation, but many of them are strictly off-limits. Miraheze staff have also been known to interfere with local community operations.

Referata: — this host specialises in Semantic wikis. Users should be aware that the site appears to have become a dormant wiki hosting provider, as the feature requests page has been abandoned for some time, and the recent changes is usually filed with account creations.

ShoutWiki: — social tools are one of ShoutWiki's fields of expertise, though before one is allowed to create a wiki site on ShoutWiki, you need to be logged in and be e-mail confirmed. A charge of $5.50 is required to remove adverts, which the site unfortunately relies on for one stream of funding. Some highly technical features are available to staff only. ShoutWiki staff consists of highly experienced MediaWiki developers and editors.

Wiki.Wiki: — as of December 2016, the ability to create wikis has been removed. Attempting to request a wiki returns a message saying "we are evaluating the wiki.wiki program right now and are not creating new wikis for a while". This message has been present for over three months, and filing a request returns absolutely nothing. Wiki.Wiki subsequently ceased to offer wiki hosting, notice was given to all existing editors.

Wikia: — this commercial behemoth of a host is prolifically advert-spammed, with no paid removal option available, and the staff are not very open to founder configuration control. Relying on a unique and heavily customised yet outdated version of MediaWiki, there are many features that are available to staff-only.